প্রবাসে পূজোর স্বাদ

পুজোর সময় কলকাতা যাওয়ার জন্য ব্যাকুলতা আর নেই, ছোটবেলার যেসব বন্ধুদের সাথে পুজো কাটতো সেইসব বন্ধুদের অনেকেই আজ কলকাতায় নেই, নেই এখানে সকালের সেই চেনা হিমেল হাওয়া, নেই বর্ষার ঘন কালো মেঘ কেটে গিয়ে নীল ক্যানভাসে পেঁজা তুলো। কলকাতার পুজোর অনেক কিছুই এখানে নেই। তবু যা আছে সেটা দিয়েই মনকে বোঝাতে হয়, মন ভরাতে হয়। আর ধীরে ধীরে সময়ের সাথে সাথে মিস্‌ করাগুলোর সাথে আপস ও হয়ে যায়। পাওয়া যায় নতুন বন্ধু, পাওয়া যায় নতুন পুজো। এখন আর পুজোর সময় কেউ কলকাতা গেলে, নিজে যেতে পারছিনা বলে মন খারাপ হয় না, বরং উল্টে এটা মনে হয় যে 'এমা, অমুক তো আমাদের হায়দ্রাবাদ এর পুজোটা এবার মিস করবে'। ভগবান, পুজো মণ্ডপ, পুরোহিত - এসব তো নিমিত্ত মাত্র। উৎসব এর প্রাসঙ্গিকতাই তো পরিবার-পরিজন-বন্ধু-বান্ধব কে নিয়েই. আগামী চারটে দিন তাই শুধু হই, হুল্লোড়, খাওয়া দাওয়া, চেঁচা মিচি, ঠাকুর দেখা আর ভেসে যাওয়া। আর গত এক মাসে মর্নিং ওয়াক করে যে ২ কিলো চর্বি ঝরিয়েছি, সেটাকে সুদে আসলে উসুল করে নেয়া। কলকাতায় নয়ত তাতে কি যায় আসে, এটা তো গ্লোবালাইজেসান এর সময়। ৪টে বাঙালি আর ১টা দুর্গা পুজো, প্রাণ ভরে হাসতে এর থেকে বেশি আর কিছু লাগে কি। শুভ মহালয়া… সবাই কে নিয়ে আনন্দ করুন, সুস্থ থাকুন, সুন্দর থাকুন। পুজো আপনাদের সবার ভালো কাটুক…

Food Review: Aao Khao (Hyderabad)

This place just came up recently & was already getting very good reviews in the foodie circle. So, I had planned to make a visit for dinner. As this is a standing eatery, so planned for parcel. Reached the place around 7pm. The initial look, the neatness, sufficient number of fans + AC makes it a convenient place for eating unlike so many other standing eateries.  I had ordered half butter chicken, half Tandoori, one Amritsari Kulcha & one Naan. The food was packed within 10 minutes & I headed for a 30 min drive towards home. In the car while driving, the aroma of the Kulcha was just making me irresistible, already had a feeling that this will not disappoint.

Upon reaching home, got ready for the food. The first bite of Kulcha just melted in the mouth, have never tasted Kulcha like this before. The butter chicken was just mesmerising.  The soft, creamy gravy with the right mix of sweet yet mild spicy was very good, and so was the Chicken Tandoori.  Overall it was a very good experience with complete VFM of 600/=.

I will definitely go there to try some of their veg dishes as they also seem to be very authentic. A must try place for office lunch as well as weekend lunch/dinner around Gachibowli area..

Food: 4.5/5
Ambiance: 3.5/5
Self Service
VFM: 4.5/5
You can find my Zomato review in https://www.zomato.com/review/qzbxPQ

Food Review: Ayati (Hyderabad)

When I was looking for a place for team lunch around Hi-Tech city area, I got to know about this place from foodies' group as well as from some of my friends. This was a Friday lunch, so had called them a day before for reservation, we were asked to come sharp @12.30pm. Though we reached on time, the buffet was not ready till 12.45pm, a disappointing experience to start with. If you expect punctuality from your customers, you better demonstrate that first!

Anyway as the food was getting ready, we were greeted with a Mango Panna, which tasted really good. Then we proceeded for the buffet, I must admit that I was impressed with the sheer number of items they had for buffet. Around 3/4 types of salad, Dahi Vada, Veg Sikh Kebab, Fried Corn, Kung Pao Fish, Murgh Adraki Kebab, deep fried Moroccon Egg. All of the starters tasted very good.

In the main course, they had Kadai Sabzi, Kadai Paneer, Chicken Malai, Murgh Makhani, Egg Nilgiri(egg cooked with Palak curry). I specially liked the tenderness of Chicken Malai & Egg Nilgiri, the later one was a rather unconventional dish. They also had Veg & Dum Gosht Biriyani. Worth mentioning is the large size yet tender mutton pieces in the biriyani, which is very rare in Hyderabadi cousine.

In the desserts, they had Fruit Pudding, Mango Pudding, Double Ka Meetha, Gazar Ka Halwa, Fresh Fruits & 3 flavours of ice-cream. The Fruit Pudding was the best. 

Overall a satisfactory experience as far as food is concerned. On the service, felt they were bit under-staffed. Also, we went in a time where maximum tables were not yet occupied, still they were having difficulty serving. Not sure how they will manage when they will have all the tables booked.

Also felt the number of items were bit heavy for a weekday lunch & the price (375, though they had mentioned that the buffet price would increase very soon)

Food: 4/5
Ambiance: 4/5
Service: 3/5
VFM: 4/5

Disclaimer: As they had too many items for the Buffet, I might have missed out some dishes that I had or even might have mixed up with dishes that were not on offer. My sincere apology in advance.

Are 'We' better than 'Them'

This post was selected by BlogAdda for Saturday Pick. This was originally posted in Another blog of mine. I am moving it here to consolidate all my blog posts on this blog only from henceforth..

We live such a bright,colorful and dynamic life with varieties spread across horizons that we even feel suffocated to think how they lived their boring, monotonous, black and white life.
We have color TV, 24*7 new channels, umpteen nos of other entertainment medium. They had a b/w TV, news once/twice a day, two movies per week one on Saturday and another one on Sunday. Still we feel not being sufficiently entertained that filler has come in the avatar of reality shows.
We have mobile phone, email, fax, Internet and social network sites. They only had hand written letters which might take weeks to reach the destination and some times would not reach at all, and for some privileged one, a land line phone. Still they were more 'connected' than we seem to be.

We not only change jobs across companies but across domains, too and by the time we retire, most of us will not remember how many jobs we have changed. They, in most cases started their career and retired from the same place. Still I guess they were more satisfied, because the term 'job satisfaction' was not used and heard that frequently then.

We get lost selecting what brand of clothing to wear, where to have tonight's dinner, which car conveys our social status (read bank balance) the best and even for some, picking which BF/GF is the most profitable for us. They were mostly content with the limited options available to them.

We have freedom almost in everything, studying what we want, marrying the person we like, leading a lifestyle we choose, wearing the clothes we find stylish and also the freedom to even ask our parents to shut up, when we found they are not in 'sync' with us. They studied what their father wanted, married the person family chose for them, at times they argued with their parents but with due respect and not crossing the limit of decency.

So to put it simple, we have so many choices and they hardly had any. We consider ourselves living a much better life than they had. We also take stride acknowledging we are far more knowledgeable than them. We are certainly smarter, more matured than they were and we grow at a much faster pace, so much so that we sometimes feel our parents are failing to catch up. I was shocked but not surprised, when I saw one fellow blogger shouting in one of the recent post I visited that why can't the parents grow up (I could not put it within quote as I forgot exactly what he/she said), whatever be the topic it was. Anyway, personal choices apart. But the question of the hour is "Are we happier than them"?

'A happy and peaceful life', I guess that is what most of us aspire for. If everything is better now than before, then my confused mind fails to answer why the suicide rates are much higher today? Why are we so much frustrated in our work life in spite of drawing a salary that they could never think of? In spite of being intelligent, why are we so much confused today? Why marriages are so fragile today than it was ever before? We have everything, but still why do we feel 'something' is missing!!

Are we then a bit quicker than required concluding everything they had is bad, irrational and obsolete. Majority of us believe that most of the values and practices of yesteryear's don't have much relevance today, but is that the ultimate truth, are everything we preach and practice today 'the perfect'? They had already lived their life, most of them are standing at the faded end of their journey waiting for the final call from Him. Where as, we are just living our life, we are yet to reach the destination to be in a position to look back and judge whether the life we had lived is indeed a better one or not. Till then, we need to be little considerate in our thoughts, flexible in our actions, give due respect to those age old 'obsolete' values (we do not agree does not mean we should disrespect it) and also remember nothing is permanent, so what we think righteous today will become irrelevant tomorrow and the way we are treating 'them' who brought us here, we will be treated the same by 'them' whom we will bring here.

I love that movie "Kal Aaj Aur Kal", everyone must watch it, if not already...

Please note:
#1. If you find the post disoriented,conflicting or confusing with the message being conveyed, please ask for clarification. I just poured my thoughts onto paper without thinking anything else much...
#2. The 'We' and 'Them' is what I generally perceive and I am very well aware of the exceptions. So, those who do not fall in either of the category, must not feel offended. In case you feel, my sincere apology.

রঙের গরমিল

পুরুষ দের রঙের বৈচিত্র নিয়ে সমস্যা কিঞ্চিৎ। লাল, নীল আর হলুদ - তিনটে প্রাথমিক রঙ আর তার সাথে মিলিয়ে মিশিয়ে আরো গোটা সাত-আষ্টেক না হয়। মেয়েদের ক্ষেত্রে ব্যাপারটা একটু জটিল। একটা রঙ যতই হোক বিদঘুটে, তার কম্পজিসান হোলই বা ততই জট-পাকানো, মেয়েদের কাছে প্রত্যেকটা রঙের একটা আলাদা আলাদা গুরুত্ব আছে। সে যাই থাকুক না কেন, পুরুষের দৈনন্দিন জীবনে তা নিয়ে তেমন মাথাব্যাথা নেই। মাথাব্যাথা তখনি হয় যখন মা, বোন, বউ, পিসি বা মাসি এর কারণে আমাদের জীবনে বিন-বুলায়ে-মেহেমান এর মত কোন সমস্যার সমাগম হয়। সে আজ থেকে প্রায় বিশ বছর আগের কথা। স্কুলের শারীর শিক্ষার পরীক্ষা। আমাদের নেক্সট জেনারেশান এর ছেলে পিলেদের এই বস্তুটির সম্মুখীন হতে হয়নি, কিন্তু আমাদের কাছে এটা সাক্ষাৎ যমের থেকে কিছু কম ছিল না। যোগব্যায়াম আর শরীরচর্চা এর পরে অশীতিপর বৃদ্ধ মাস্টারমশায় এর প্রশ্নবাণের সম্মুখীন - 'ধমনি কেটে গেলে যে রক্ত বেরোয় তার রঙ কি ?' উত্তর টা এক বিশেষ ধরনের লাল, সেটা মনেই ছিল, কিন্তু হটাৎ কি মনে হোল বললাম, ~ 'রানি কালার'। মাস্টারমশায় আমার দিকে চশমার ভিতর থেকে বৃদ্ধ ক্লান্ত ঘোলাটে চোখ দুটো বড় বড় করে তাকিয়ে আছেন আর পিছন থেকে বন্ধুদের মুচকি মুচকি হাসি কানে আসছে। - 'রানি কালার!! সেটা কেমন রঙ??' আমার পরের উত্তরটা টিপিকাল মৌখিক পরীক্ষার উত্তরের মত - ভিন্ন ভাষায় একই স্টেটমেন্ট এর পুনরাবৃত্তি। ~ 'ওই রানি কালার এর মতই লাল'। - 'এই রানি কালার টা তোমায় কে শিখিয়েছে? আমি তো বাপের জন্মে এমন কোন রঙের নাম শুনেছি বলে মনে পড়ছে না'। ~ 'স্যার, মায়ের মুখে শাড়ি আর লিপস্টিক নিয়ে আলোচনা করার সময় এই রঙ টার নাম শুনেছি'। পরীক্ষার সময় মায়েদের স্কুল এ গিয়ে বসে থাকার একটা চল ছিল আমাদের মায়েদের মধ্যে। অতঃপর গার্জেন কল হোল, একটু আলাদা এই বারে, মানে গার্জেন এর জন্য গার্জেন কল! স্যার মায়ের সাথে কিছু আলোচনা করলেন, আমি দূরে নিষ্পাপ মুখে দাঁড়িয়ে থাকার চেষ্টা করলাম যাতে এর এফেক্ট আমার রেজাল্ট এ না আসে। রেজাল্ট এ প্রভাব পড়েছিল বইকি, উপরি পাওনা ছিল বন্ধুদের সামনে বেইজ্জত হওয়া আর বাড়ি এসে আবার মা এর বকুনি শোনা। কিন্তু পাঠকগন তিন সত্যি করে বলুনতো আমার কোন দোষ ছিল কি? নোটঃ কিছুদিন আগে ফেসবুক এ একটা পোস্ট দেখেছিলাম যে একটা মাল্টিকালার স্পেস এ ছেলেরা যেখানে ৪-৫ টির বেশি কালার দেখতে পায়না, মেয়েরা সেখানে ২৫-৩০ টা কালার আইডেন্টিফাই করতে পারে। সেটা দেখতে দেখতেই এই ঘটনাটা মনে পরে গেল।

Food Review: Pabrai's Fresh & Naturelle Ice Cream (Hyderabad)

I had recently read many positive reviews about this place in Foodie's group, so made a visit on a Saturday evening with family. We reached there around 7pm, not very crowded, yet the few tables they had were all occupied, so had to adjust with the sitting tools. Small disappointment to start with. Ordered 1 scoop of Nolen Gur (Date Palm Jaggery) & 1 scoop of Pan(Betel Leaves). As soon as we took the first bite, everyone was awestruck. The feeling inside the mouth was exactly the same that I was expecting. Could not believe that someone could recreate the exact flavours for these not-so-common ice-cream flavours.

The option of making 1/2 scoop of two different flavors into one single scoop came handy when we were planning to order next. We tried  1 scoop(1/2 Pan + 1/2 Nolen Gur), 2 scoops of Kesaria Rabri Malai, 1 scoop of Mango Alphonso for kid. The mango was a total let down. Parents liked the Rabri Malai, even more than the Pan, they did not like the strong flavour of Pan that much. Thereafter, went on to try some other flavors like Lemon Grass(found it blunt, could be the because of lingering effect of strong Pan still in my mouth), tender Coconut, South Indian Coffee. The coconut was one more surprising flavor, taste wise it was no less than the Pan/Nolen Gur.

When we were almost done, there came a pleasant surprise. As we did not get a table to sit initially, they offered a complimentary scoop of Chandan(Sandalwood) Sugar Free. The fragrance of Chandan was very much prominent. Overall a bill amount of 640/= for is very good value for money. Will definitely go there again. I recommend this place a must-visit for the Ice-Cream lovers

Food: 4.5/5
Ambiance: 3/5
VFM: 4/5
Self Service

My Zomato review can be found here https://www.zomato.com/review/qzqwbQ